Unitec lecturer sets sights on North Island race

Media Release                                                                     February 18, 2011

Unitec lecturer sets sights on winning two-handed race around North Island in top racing yacht designed and built by him and his students

Unitec Institute of Technology lecturer Rob Shaw’s yacht designs have been making waves on the New Zealand’s yacht racing scene – and he’s now aiming to win the two-handed Round the North Island race which starts this Saturday from Auckland’s Devonport wharf at 2pm.

The gruelling 1244 nautical mile race is only held every three years and has become a New Zealand sailing classic. The first race was in 1977 and was won by Sir Peter Blake and is now run by the Short Handed Sailing Association NZ (SSANZ).

The race is expected to take two weeks as about 40 yachts compete on a course that circles the north island anticlockwise with just three brief stopovers: a 24-hour break in Mangonui and 48-hour lay overs in Wellington and Napier.

Shaw, a lecturer in Marine Technology at Unitec’s Department of Transport Technology, built Karma Police with students from the Certificate and Bachelor of Applied Technology progames at Unitec. It is also a core component to his Master of Design studies at Unitec.

Karma Police has only been in the water for a couple of years but has already built quite a reputation on the water. It was third in the 2010 HSBC Coastal Classic Race and 2nd in the 2010 Bay of Islands regatta.

At just 9.1 metres, the lightweight canting-keel racer will be competing against much larger yachts in the grueling 1244 nautical mile race. Shaw believes he and crew Ben Costello have a pretty good chance of doing really well.  

“Since we’ve been sailing Karma Police, she has proved to be much faster than other boats her size (9m) and well up with the 40 and 50 footers,” Rob Shaw says. “The boat’s systems have been designed for ease of use when sailing short-handed, when doing manoeuvres like hoisting and dropping sails, so we are really well set up in that regard. We are hoping for lots of downwind conditions so we can compete with the bigger boats. Obviously it would be fantastic to be first on line, but that’s a big ask when we are racing against boats much bigger than ourselves. Having said that, we have great confidence in the boat and we know how fast she can go, so why not aim high?”

Karma Police, which was a project based on his design and constructed by Shaw, other Unitec staff and students. It was the first time students were involved in building a carbon composite race boat and it gave them an invaluable introduction to those building methods says Shaw.

At Unitec, students usually build project boats to a certain stage and then on sell them to cover the costs of construction. “While this is a great way to learn, the students don’t get the sense of achievement of seeing a boat building project through to completion and building Karma Police gave them that opportunity,” says Shaw.  “It’s awesome for the students to also now see the success of the boat on the water.”

Shaw says that they are hoping to avoid any more cyclones during the two week duration of the race. The boat is built of carbon fibre, so it is incredibly strong as well as being lightweight. We have sailed her in some pretty wild conditions. The race organisers are very safety conscious so  they are unlikely to start any of the legs if there’s a cyclone about! We’re going to get wet, that’s for sure, but we’ll be safe.

Karma Police

LOA: 9.1m

LWL: 8.8m

Beam: 3m

Draft: 2.5m

Displacement: 1800kg

Sail Area: upwind 66sq m, main 44sq m, jib 22sq m, gennaker 120 sq m

Fleet timetable

Round North Island Race Start: February 19

Leg 1: Auckland to Mangonui

Leg 2: Mangonui to Wellington

Leg 3: Wellington to Napier

Leg 4: Napier to Auckland

More info: ssanz.co.nz; www.shawyachtdesign.com; www.unitec.ac.nz

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